The days of July....

July has been such a beautiful month. Low humidity, sunny, cool nights and no rain! We have loved playing outside, spending lots of time with friends at play dates, eating dinner late so the kids can keep playing, late bedtimes, biking around town and eating lots of ice cream!

I am not a baker, but today my cute helpers and I made some delicious cookies!

These 3 are inseparable!

I think it is safe to say that Peyton loves ice cream treats!

The kids (I mean "me") did such a great job reading and completing their Summer Reading Charts from the library.  We loved all of the fun and tasty prizes!

The Three Amigos!

We have stepped it up a notch with the pool by placing it under the slide!  Lots of fun to be had!

A super hero has been spotted at our house and he is eating our snacks!

Water Festival...

Lately there has been so many fun things to do with the kids.  Today we participated in the Water Festival at Windmill Island.  We had so much fun learning about water and seeing all of the fun booths they had set up!  The highlights were Parker winning his safari hat and catching a fish (which they "fillet" for you so you could take it home.  By fillet they mean cutting the head off and taking the guts out.  Our fish were still moving after that...gross!  We left them in the cooler and "forgot" to take them home!).

Hot-Air Balloon Festival...

The Hudsonville Fairgrounds was the perfect setting for the Hot-Air Balloon Festival. It was such a fun night spending time with my mom, watching the kids play games and win little prizes (which they were very excited about, but we weren't so excited to have 20 new trinkets enter our home!), and watch the HUGE hot-air balloons fill up and float away!

One of the greatest mullets I have seen in a while...made me smile!

We are Dutch, so we go to Dutch Village...

Thank you Zeeland Library for the awesome Dutch Village passes! Our trip this year went much smoother than last year! We spent almost 4 hours there doing all there is to do! Like any good trip with kids it always must end in someone crying! Peyton was the one that helped us know it was time to call it quits...crying from being sprayed on the swing with a hose and then a fall that had her knees bleeding!

They wanted to hold the ducklings so badly but none came close enough to grab.  They are a little too used to Critter Barn; they think they can hold any animal they want to.

Peyton continues to be our brave kiddo.  She went on the ferris wheel first and then once she returned safely then Parker wanted to try it!  I will be honest that it made my stomach drop and I was a little nervous when we got to the top!

Parker LOVED walking the goat!  He wants to have a goat as a pet!  I think it would be fun too but Joel isn't convinced!

It happened to be "Make a Free Dutch Cookie Day" so the kids got to make their own cookies.  As you can see they were very serious about this responsibility!

This was hard work cranking his little cart.  He was working up a sweat!

Peyton was brave and tried the swings.  She was a little nervous but doing great...then enter the misting sprayer and the tears started to flow!